British Airways To Remove Reclining Economy Seats On Some Flights

British Airways shocked the travel world earlier this week when a spokesperson for the airline confirmed to The Telegraph that the airline would be fitting its order of 25 new Airbus A320neo and 10 A321neo planes with non-reclining seats.

British Airways

British Airways will put the non-reclining seats on Airbus A320s like this one.

According to the spokesperson, the airline intends to use these planes, which should be delivered to the airline starting later this year, on routes of up to four hours. Though the economy seats on them will not have the recline function that economy seats as we know them today have, the airline said that they will be set at “a gentle angle” rather than bolt upright. Just how gentle this angle will be remains quite vague, though.

To make matters worse, the airline also toldCondé Nast Traveler that it plans to “remodify its existing fleet of 62 A320s and 14 A321s” with the new slimline seats over the next five years.

The airline’s reasoning is that these new seats will prevent passengers from encroaching on the legroom and table space of passengers in the row behind them. That should alleviate air rage incidents (no more Knee Defender), and spare laptop users anxiety about opening up their devices for fear of them being damaged by passengers in front of them reclining at the wrong moment. The jets will also offer power ports at each seat and onboard WiFi.

British Airways framed the announcement as a cost-saving move (non-reclining seats are lighter and thus more fuel-efficient) that will allow the airline to offer more low fares to passengers on short-haul routes. However, the decision is just the latest in a series of what many consumers and travel advocates have seen as customer-unfriendly moves by the airline, which has struggled to keep up with competition from low-cost carriers like Ryanair, easyJet and Norwegian.

British Airways

Are the days of reclining seats behind us?

Among those unpopular initiatves was the airline’s decision to start charging passengers for food and beverage options rather than offering them free on short-haul flights beginning last January. Before that, in August 2016, B.A. ended second meal service in economy on long-haul flights, though the airline has since said it would bring back a full second meal on these flights.

Unfortunately, this news is likely a preview of more things to come on both B.A. and other carriers. Airlines set new records in 2017 with the fees they collected for once-included services like checked and even carry-on baggage, onboard meals and seating selections. Coupled with the rise of basic economy fares and similar cost-cutting measures that airlines are instituting in an effort both to improve their own bottom lines and lure in cost-conscious consumers, we are only going to see more airlines adopt similar seating options.

Like B.A., other airlines will argue that these changes favor consumers, who they claim will have more choices and can save money on deeply discounted fares. However, these moves simply amount to yet another way to squeeze in more passengers as a captive audience they can nickel and dime with add-on fees.

The news echoes American Airlines’ announcement last year that it planned to reduce seat pitch to a mere 29 inches on some of its new planes. The customer backlash that announcement sparked led the airline to reverse course a month later. We will just have to watch how British Airways’ customer base and the flying public in general react to this news to see if a similar outcome is likely in this case.